Page 80 of Progeny of the Cursed Egg
“If she’s in the catacombs, it will take some doing to dig down to where she is,” Klauth says, his breath forming small clouds in the cold air. The tunnel before us seems to swallow all light, an abyss of darkness stretching endlessly downward.
“I can find her,” Balor declares, his voice rough with determination. The muscles in his jaw work beneath his skin as he stares into the darkness, shoulders tense and coiled with pent-up energy.
“I know you can.” I reach out, resting a hand on his shoulder, feeling the hard knots of tension beneath his jacket. His skin radiates an unnatural heat, fever-hot even through the thick fabric. Balor’s gaze meets mine briefly, his eyes reflecting the dim light like a predator’s,before dropping to the ground. A small muscle twitches beneath his left eye, betraying his barely contained fury.
“Klauth, can we send him down to watch from the shadows, just in case she needs him sooner?” I glance at Klauth, my hand still on Balor’s shoulder, feeling the slight tremor running through him. My mouth tastes bitter with anxiety, heart hammering against my ribs so hard I wonder if the others can hear it.
“Do it,” Klauth commands, his voice echoing off the stone walls. “Balor, get down there and do whatever is needed to keep Mina safe until Thauglor can get to you.”
It’s as if a fire has been lit beneath Balor. He shifts immediately, his form melting and transforming before our eyes. His skin ripples and hardens, taking on the scaled pattern of his basilisk form. The sound of bones cracking and reforming fills the air as his face contorts, jaws extending to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth. Within seconds, the man is gone, replaced by the massive serpentine form of his basilisk. The creature slithers into the dark opening of the cavern leading to the catacombs, scales scraping softly against stone as he disappears into the shadows. The rhythmic sound of his powerful body moving deeper into the darkness fades, until all I can hear is the steady drip of water and my own ragged breathing.
I watch as he vanishes completely into the darkness, a knot of unease tightening in the pit of my stomach. The air feels colder suddenly, raising goosebumps along my arms beneath my sleeves.
“What’s that look for?” Abraxis asks, moving closer, his boots scraping against the rocky ground. His brow furrows with concern, deep lines etching themselves around his mouth. The scent of his cologne—sandalwood and something sharper, more primal—wafts toward me as he leans in.
“I feel like we should be doing more,” I confess, kicking at the loose rocks at my feet. They skitter across the stone floor, the soundechoing off the walls like tiny gunshots. My fingers flex and curl at my sides, nails digging half-moons into my palms. “Standing here while she’s in danger is torture.”
Abraxis sighs, his gaze fixed on the tunnel that swallowed Balor. His breath mingles with mine in the cold air. “Trust me, we would be if it weren’t for Lysander being a basilisk in a small containment area. The odds of being turned to stone are very high in this situation.”
I nod, understanding the danger, but it does little to quell the restless energy thrumming through my body. The taste of fear is metallic on my tongue, my mouth dry despite the dampness of our surroundings. The weight of Mina’s absence feels like a physical thing, a hollowness beneath my ribs that aches with each breath.
All I can do is hope that Mina’s plan succeeds and that we’ll be reunited with her soon. The alternative is too painful to consider. I press my palm against the cold stone wall, feeling its ancient strength, and send a silent prayer to whatever god might be listening:Bring her back to us.Outside, the last sliver of sun disappears beyond the horizon, plunging the world into twilight. The waves crescendo against the cliffs in a deafening roar, as if announcing the coming of night. Standing here, with tons of earth and stone between us and the crypts below, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re merely scratching the surface of something vast and malevolent—a darkness that has waited patiently for centuries, and now stirs at the presence of Mina in its domain.
CHAPTER 45
Mina
Kai doesn’t stick around longonce Lysander has me in the center of the room, his footsteps fading into the echoing silence as he abandons me to my fate. Sarcophagi line the interior of the cavern, Klauth’s ancestors from what I can gather. They stand like stone monoliths forgotten to time in this damp space, the air around them thick with the musty scent of age and decay. Water drips somewhere in the darkness, each drop amplified in the cavernous silence, marking time like a morbid metronome.
“It’s truly a sad day that basilisk and dragons have issues reproducing,” Lysander says, his voice slithering through the cool air between us. He does a mock pout as he stares at me, his lips curling unnaturally, revealing teeth too sharp for a human mouth. “In a true mate situation, the babies take mostly after the mother.” He smirks and tilts his head, the movement jerky, and reptilian. The torchlight catches in his eyes, reflecting with an inhuman glow. “You’ve already met my son, Zade. He works for your father. He’s a green dragon-basilisk hybrid. His mother is part of the flight your father commands.”
Lysander’s words hit me like a sledgehammer, the impact stealing my breath more effectively than a physical blow. The cold realization spreads through my veins like ice water—the male I killed was his son. The taste of bile rises in my throat, acidic and bitter. “What happened to having dragon-kin?” My voice sounds hollow even to my own ears, bouncing off the stone walls around us.
“Lies. Dragon kin are produced when the pair are not mates.” He hisses, the sound sharp and grating in the enclosed space, and his serpentine tongue flickers out, tasting the air near me. I can feel the slight disturbance in the air it creates unnervingly close to my skin. “You should go into heat again sooner than later. Such perfect timing.” His words repulse me to the point I shiver, goosebumps rising along my arms despite the damp heat of the cavern.
“I’ll never give you hatchlings.” I turn my head away from him, the muscles in my neck protesting the movement, and catch the momentary glow of red eyes in the darkness, like burning coals nestled in shadow. The scale on the back of my neck warms slightly, a pleasant heat against my otherwise chilled skin, and my breath catches in my throat, heart skipping a beat. Balor is here. The faint, familiar scent of him—earth and smoke and something uniquely his—reaches me even through the stale cavern air, so subtle I might have imagined it.
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. You have three choices. Provide me heirs, bind your soul to a vessel and become a dracolich, or simply die a slow, horrible death in my coils.” He lunges forward, the air displacing with a whoosh, and grips my jaw, his fingers digging painfully into my skin, forcing me to face him. His breath washes over me, hot and smelling of rotting meat and something chemical I can’t identify. “You already have one basilisk in the nest. Why not add a different subspecies?”
“Subspecies?” Out of habit, I make my scales rise over my ribs and up my throat just in case, feeling them shift and overlap beneath myskin with a sensation like thousands of tiny razors sliding into place. The sound they make is imperceptible to human ears, but to me, it’s a soft, comforting rasp, like chain mail settling. Slowly, they spread down and over my soft stomach to protect my intestines, the weight of them reassuring.
“Balor isn’t the only type of basilisk out there. Mine is admittedly smaller, but no less deadly.” His eyes are more of a red-orange when they shift to his basilisk’s, the pupils narrowing to vertical slits as they focus on me with predatory intensity. The air between us seems to thicken, becoming harder to breathe.
Reaching deep within myself, I am just starting to feel my dragoness again, a warm, familiar presence unfurling in my core, and the faint echoes of my bonds to my mates. Each connection feels distinct—one a cool, steady pulse, another a gentle warmth, a third a rhythmic thrum. I find the one that seems like it’s burning, a connection that sears through my consciousness like a brand, and push as much energy towards it as I can, the effort making my temples throb. ‘Come to me...’I call down that bond, hoping beyond hope it’s Thauglor’s. “I’m too young to bear offspring safely.” I fight for control of my head, trying to pull away from him, the bones in my jaw creaking under his grip.
“Another myth. As soon as the first heat hits, a female is breedable. You simply need to lay your eggs as your dragon to survive.” Lysander says, his voice taking on a lecturing tone that makes my skin crawl. His fingers tighten on my face, leaving bruises I can already feel forming.
Fuck, he knows...My heart sinks, the heavy weight of dread settling in my stomach like a stone. I stare into his eyes as coldly as possible. I try to mask the fear I know he can probably smell on me, sour and sharp. “I would rather die than breed with you.” I growl at him, the sound rumbling deep in my chest, and spit in his face. The glob ofsaliva lands on his cheek, sliding down slowly. Flat palm, I hit his chest as hard as I can, the impact jarring up my arm. What I wouldn’t give to have my talons right now, to feel them slice through his flesh. What the hell did he give me to keep me from shifting? My skin itches with the need to transform, to tear him apart scale by scale.
“Fucking bitch.” He backhands me across my face, the crack of his palm against my cheek echoing in the cavern. Pain explodes across my face, bright and hot, as I go sprawling. The ground is rough beneath me, scraping my palms and knees as I land, the taste of copper flooding my mouth where my teeth cut the inside of my cheek. When I look up, blinking away stars, I see Balor watching from the shadows, his six eyes glowing with barely contained rage. I shake my head slightly, telling him no.Not yet. Wait for the right moment.
Lysander rips me up off the ground by my hair, each individual strand feeling like it might tear from my scalp. Pain lances across my head, bringing tears to my eyes that I refuse to let fall. “I guess you choose death. Your father will be so disappointed.” Manic laughter escapes his lips, high and unhinged, and I feel a shiver move down my scales along my spine, the sensation both foreign and familiar. I believe he’s finally lost it. “He told me you would choose me over death.” The laughter continues as his eyes flicker between human and serpentine, never quite settling on one form. The surrounding air seems to waver, as if reality itself is struggling to contain him. Lysander has finally become unhinged, and I’m in the hands of a madman. The realization is more terrifying than any physical threat.
Before I can say anything, Lysander’s form contorts, bones cracking and reshaping with wet, sickening pops as he shifts to his basilisk. His serpentine form isn’t as long as Balor’s, and his scales are large plates versus heavily armored scales, gleaming dully in the dim light. His basilisk only has two eyes instead of six, but they burn withmalevolent intelligence as they fix on me. He coils around me slowly, the scales rough against my skin through my clothing, starting to crush. The pressure builds gradually, pushing the air from my lungs in small, desperate gasps.
An enraged roar echoes down the tunnel, the sound so powerful I feel it vibrate in my chest cavity. I smile, my split lip stinging with the movement. I call back as loud as I can, a primal sound of defiance and recognition, before Lysander tightens his coils around me. Gasping, I wiggle, fighting for breath, the edges of my vision darkening. I manage to get myself into a position lined up with one of his larger scale plates that allows me to catch my breath a little. The small pocket of space is a momentary reprieve. The sounds of something clawing at the earth echoes through the chamber as dirt falls from the ceiling, raining down on us like fine brown snow, filling my nose with the scent of loam and minerals.
I turn my head slowly in the direction where I last saw Balor, each movement an agony of careful precision, and mouthNOWto him, my lips forming the word with deliberate clarity. Before I can blink, his basilisk launches out of the darkness, a blur of coiled muscle and gleaming scales striking Lysander just below his head. The impact sends vibrations through Lysander’s body and into mine, his surprise manifesting as a high-pitched hiss that hurts my ears. Lysander uncoils a little bit, though still not enough for me to get free, his muscles rippling beneath his scales in confusion.
